


Not Even With A Whimper

by funeralshenanigans



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Heart Attacks, no happy endings here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funeralshenanigans/pseuds/funeralshenanigans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fall, what Fall? For the purposes of this story, that didn't happen. </p><p>----</p><p>October 12th and John had always thought Sherlock--<em>they'd</em>--go out with a bang. Not like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Even With A Whimper

**Author's Note:**

> Any errors, please let me know. Also, if you think the rating needs to be changed, poke me and I'll do so.

John would like to have said something had led up to the event, that something had _happened_ beforehand that could explain it, but there was nothing. No mad dashes across London, no signs of the movie-favoured hand clutching his chest. In fact, it had been a rather dull couple of weeks; cases taken because of sheer boredom from his website and solved within ten minutes (five minutes, if it had been particularly ‘obvious’). In fact, the most strenuous thing that they had done that day was head to the nearest chippy for lunch. Sherlock had declined any food once they’d got there (“Really, John? Three packets of salt? Are you a Doctor or not?) but that hadn’t stopped him from nicking the odd chip off him. John had pretended not to notice. 

Which is how they had found their selves in Lestrade’s office, reviewing cold cases--his own attempt at starving off one of Sherlock’s dark moods--on a rather tepid Saturday afternoon. Sherlock had been pacing up and down, curls in disarray from scrubbing his hands through them, while Lestrade had steadily been getting more annoyed as the insults to his intelligence became more frequent. 

“No, no, **no** , Lestrade. Are you really this dense? Because I find it hard to believe that someone this idiotic manages to tie their own shoelaces in the morning, let alone solve murders. Isn’t it obvious? Can’t you _see_? Of course it was the brother! All you had to do was look at his knees!”

It was this point, John thought. Right here.

It wasn’t anything dramatic. Just the tightening of his eyes, a half-startled, “Joh--” before he crumpled to the floor, his head hitting the side of Lestrade’s desk before bouncing off the floor.

And there. That was it. Right there.

Even now, the hard plastic of the chair digging into his back, he couldn’t remember moving, but all at once he’d been there, rolling Sherlock over into the recovery position, tapping his cheek. His hands were steady; he was Doctor Watson, not John Watson. “Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me?” His eyes were fixed open, pupils blown, and his breath rattled as he tried to take a pull in. His shoulder jerked, turning him onto his back. “No, no, Sherlock. Like this, you’ll be fine. Can you hear me?” Pulling him back into the recovery position earned a rather pained sounding gasp from Sherlock.

He remembered hearing Greg on the phone to the ambulance, face drained of colour, crouching beside him. “Is he okay?” 

He’d stroked his hand. He was remembering this now. Just his thumb brushing over his hand, sharp eyes keeping trained on his face. Normally pale, right now Sherlock was ashen, eyes glassy and every time he pulled in a breath, it sounded like it hurt. “Heart attack, by the looks of things. Do you have any aspirin?” Codeine, had been Greg’s answer. 

“Sir?” 

John remembered thinking that, of all the times for Donovan to make an appearance, now wasn’t the time. He also remembered thinking once Sherlock woke up, he was going to punch him for scaring him half to death. And then possibly hug him, no matter how awkward they’d both find it.

He’d ignored her. “How far away are they?” He had still been stroking Sherlock’s hand.

“Five minutes.”

“Get her to call Mycroft. My phone’s in my jacket.”

He’d left them both to it because at that point, Sherlock had stopped pulling in those short breaths of his. “Sherlock?” Two fingers to his neck; skin clammy, no pulse. “Nononono, Sherlock.” He’d rolled him onto his back and started CPR. He’d always remember his training (“To the beat of ‘Staying Alive’. Just never sing it out loud.”) Compressions. Hold nose, breathe into his mouth. Compressions. He also knew that CPR, thanks to that self-same teacher, hardly ever worked and that the odds for survival went down by roughly ten percent for every minute until they were resuscitated. (“It’s mostly just for the sake of anyone there. If it ever gets to needing to do CPR, you should prepare yourself for the worst.”) And after ten minutes, the risk of brain injury was high. _Compressions. Hold nose, breathe into mouth. Compressions._ “Come _on_ , Sherlock.”

He heard her on the phone, even as he was fighting with Sherlock. Her voice had sounded shaky. It seemed, no matter how much she disliked Sherlock, she hadn’t wanted to see him dead. _“John, I do hope this is important. I’m rather in the middle of something.”_ “Um… my name’s Sally Donovan, with--” _“--New Scotland Yard, yes, I know all about you, Sergent Donovan.”_ “Right then. Er, I’m calling about Sherlock.” _A sigh. “And what has he done now?”_ “He’s collapsed. John’s currently performing CPR and the paramedics are on the way.”

From what John had understood, Mycroft had hung up at that point, but had still managed to make it to the correct hospital, even though road works had diverted them from the nearest one to St. Thomas’ instead.  
He’d got him breathing again. That had been John’s greatest achievement of the year. It had been a gulped in gasp, his pallor more grey than before, and John had felt his shoulders slump. He pressed his fingers against his neck, the beat jittery but there. “Yes. Yes, there we go Sherlock. That’s better. Keep breathing, Sherlock. I’m right here. Okay? You’re gunna be fine.”

His greatest failure of the year was not keeping him breathing. 

It had happened just as the paramedics had arrived, garish in their green uniforms, having been reeled the details, they were preparing him for gurney. 

He stood off to the side, Donovan at the door looking horrified, with one of his shoulders being clasped by Greg’s hand. They tubed him, tore his shirt open (the stupid thought that well, at least it wasn’t his purple shirt, Sherlock would only sulk for a week over the destruction of this one) and stuck pads to his chest, while the shocks of the defibrillator made him arch off the floor. Check pulse. Pump air. Shock. 

“Come on, Sherlock,” he’d whispered and Greg had shot him a sideways look. “Just breathe. Come on.”

He’d seen people code. He’d even done this procedure himself. But watching it being done on Sherlock was horrific. Even then he knew he’d never get the image of Sherlock’s grey face out of his head, or how murky and dull his eyes had turned, the way his body jolted into the air, the spasm of his arm a far cry from how graceful he was ordinarily. They gave him three shots of adrenaline, but it could have been water for all the good it did.

They’d rushed him from the room, one green body sitting on top of his chest and pumping it as they went through the bullroom, another one dutifully compressing the bag. Just for show, he’d thought, even though there had been a part of him that childishly believed that he’d come out of this fine; he was _Sherlock Holmes_ , ten stone soaking wet, he couldn’t die from a _heart attack_. If Sherlock was ever going to die, he would go with a bang; not without even a whimper. 

DOA, they’d said. Dead on Arrival. 

John hadn’t rode in the ambulance with them, but Greg had followed behind it, siren’s blaring, the back of his neck damp with sweat. He’d sat silent and tense in the passenger’s seat.

Head in hands, he still sat in the waiting room, feeling a little numb. He hadn’t been there when he’d died. Instead, he’d gone surrounded by strangers, graceless in death, without even a familiar voice there to ease the passage. 

He’d been so _grey_ and he’d sat there stroking his damn _hand_ , calling his name, tapping his cheek, instead of doing anything useful. 

Mycroft had left after the news but Greg was still there and right now he was pulling him up from the seat. “Come on, mate,” he said, his voice not as strong as his words. “Let’s get you home.”

It was that that finally broke him, brought him back from Doctor Watson to John Watson, who’s best friend had just died, with a rather harsh sounding sob. And when Greg got him back home, he gave him a cup of tea that had too much sugar in it and not enough milk, and he watched as John drank it all anyway.

\--

His heart attack had had nothing to do with his previous drug abuse, though that had been John’s first assumption, but rather the build up of fatty tissues around his heart. There was a guilt eating him up from the inside for feeding him so many takeaways, justifying it for the calories. John thought about the chips and nothing else for days.

The funeral had been less of a funeral and more of service. There were no hymns. It hadn’t even been in a church. (“Do I believe in God? Oh, don’t be _absurd_ , John.”) No one read. Mycroft had asked John and he’d practiced a few lines but could never get pass the lump in his throat. They played, John later found out, a rather haunting melody by Pablo de Sarasate as they left. 

Only John, Lestrade and Molly went to the pub afterwards, their own private wake.

“He asked me to do his autopsy,” Molly said, after their fourth drink. “Well, he didn’t ask me, because he’s--” she broke off here, with a rather wide-eyed look to John.

“No, it’s fine. Go on, Molly.” Tight smile.

“It was in his will,” she said, her voice timid. John knew this. He didn’t know if Lestrade did. John hadn’t even known that he’d had a will until the day Mycroft had come around with a solicitor, at least a stone lighter than the last time he saw him. “He also said that that I wasn’t a complete idiot in it. But I couldn’t do it.” A rueful smile. “Sentiment. He would have hated that.”

John laughed, but half of it caught at the back of his throat. He nearly said something sentimental in return. “Bastard,” he said instead.

Both Molly and Greg gave tepid smiles and lifted their glasses up to click against his own, echoing him.


End file.
